go STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



they occasionallv travel over the hue of the dis- 

 used mineral railway on the Brendon Hills to 

 Withiel pond and the Haddon coverts. 



Far from keeping their herds distinct, there 

 is no doubt that the deer frequently move to 

 and fro between the districts into which the 

 home country is nominally divided, the old 

 hinds teaching their calves the paths and by- 

 ways by which they have been in the habit of 

 travelling themselves on many a shiny night. 

 Every now and then in the month of April a 

 pair of shed horns will be picked up in some 

 covert or on some feeding ground, where the 

 stag has gone as a complete stranger, and again 

 in wild October some stag will be found in 

 company with a herd of hinds, having travelled 

 many weary miles from his usual habitat. On 

 the whole, perhaps, the hinds stick more closely 

 to their own locality than the stags. The most 

 likely side of Cloutsham for good sport is the 

 Sweeterv front, where the trees and fern brakes 

 run up into the hillside combes and end in 

 thick plantations of larch and other firs. Here, 

 if a stag has any confidence in his own fleetness 

 and endurance, there is nothing to prevent him 

 betaking himself at once to the open when 

 the tufters rouse him, and if he once goes 

 fairly away from the head of Bagley Combe 

 there is bound to be a run of no mean order. 

 From the first field above the farm one can 



